The Trials - Part 3

Staring down this massive clay totem pole with four arms and two stumpy legs moving towards her, all Octavia could do was stare.

With the wolf attack having helped her deal with freezing in combat, she quickly manages to come out of her stupor and stabs the end of the poleaxe into the floor. With the totem being on the other side of the room, she has some time before it reaches her, so taking the crossbow off her back, she loads it, aims and fires.

The bolt sores through the air, a slight whistling sound accompanying it as it does. With luck on her side, the bolt hits her target, the tip penetrating slightly into the clay. The force of the shot causes the totem to be pushed back very slightly.

"Odd, it can be damaged, quite easily it looks like. I wouldn't have through a bolt would be able to push it back even a bit. I guess it wouldn't do for a trial to have an invincible unmovable boss."

While it did damage the clay totem pole thing, she realises that the poleaxe may be the way to go here and drops the crossbow onto the floor.

She takes the poleaxe and makes her way over to the totem, where its bottom half spins pulling its left arm back. As she nears, it suddenly rotates the other way, its left arm swinging around towards her.

Taking advantage of her new body, she bends back as far as she can, lying flat on her snake tail causing the arm to miss her.

"Heh, heh. Easy."

Propping herself back up to go in for a swing, it is at this point she remembers that the totems arms are not like that of a human. In place of the arm needing to be pulled back again for another swing, the section continues to rotate, leading to the other arm continuing its path heading to her fast, the fist of which smacks into her chest.

"Ahh!" She is flung backwards, almost to where she started in the arena.

*Cough, cough* "Damn"

While coughing away she realises that while it did knock her back, it didn't really hurt her too much While painful, and the fact that it winded her, given the size and strength the totem looks to have, its actual attack was pretty weak.

"Very strange. It could be like the obstacle course not having spikes in the pit, this isn't here to kill me, but to test me. Test my fighting skills, reflexes and smarts in working out how to take it down."

She gears herself up for another run at it.

"Not going to make the same mistake I did with the obstacle course. While it's not there to kill me, it is still going to really hurt."

Slithering towards it at full speed, the totem goes for another spin of its bottom section. As it comes around, Octavia swings the poleaxe around, hammer head out front, and slams it into the arms. The hammer manages to dent the clay arm, and like with the bolt, it knocks the arm back slightly.

Whether it was just the path of least resistance, or some sort of decision made by the totem, it lets its arm continue on its course of being knocked away.

Remembering her mistake from last time, she ducks quickly as the other arm comes around, the arm just skimming her as it passes by, scraping the top of her skin.

It is at this point that the second set of arms come into play. Bending at the joint, it brings them forward and brings them straight up, pointing to the ceiling.

As Octavia continues to duck and weave, dodging the rotating pair of arms, she manages to inflict a good amount of damage on both arms, denting them in various places, with one almost completely mangled. Focused on the task at hand, she fails to notice the other pair, which came crashing down, with one managing to hit the tip of her tail.

"Arrgh, stupid totem thing."

Fighting through the pain, a feeling very similar to having a hammer hit your thumb, she decides to try something drastic. As the arms lift away to go for another swing, she wraps the end of her tail around one and holds it in place. The arm tries to pull away, but like the other surprises, it struggles and strains, to move.

"What can I do, how do I beat this?"

As the arm tries to resist her grip, the bottom set of arms, having paused its movements to allow the top set to hit the ground, get back to spinning.

Seeing this, Octavia readies her poleaxe and swings, smacking straight into it. Like before, it follows the path it was knocked into, leading to the other arm spinning towards her.

"Ah, I could try and topple it!" Is the thought that pops into her head.

With the time it takes for the other arm to swing around to reach her, she pulls with all her might trying to pull the totem over.

"Grrrrrr! Come on!"

With much effort she starts to succeed. The totem begins to topple, tilting in her direction.

…

But all of a sudden, the lower pair of arms stop their rotation and extend outwards, practically pushing against the floor, halting its trajectory.

"Damn it." She tries to tug harder hoping she can overcome its stubbornness to be pulled down. "What do I have to do to kill you?!" she shouts out.

Overcome by anger, she swings her poleaxe down, axe blade out and cuts into the arm she is holding.

"Yeah, let's see how you like that!"

"…"

Her happiness is short-lived, and the smile on her face turns to a frown, as the cut she made ends up closing, being filled in with the surrounding clay. It also takes the opportunity to fix all of the dents she had made previously.

"You cant be serious."

The moral hit of all her hard work being undone, makes her think even mental warfare is being tested here.

…

In somewhat of a stalemate now, still latched onto to the arm, she analyses the scene trying to figure out what to do next.

"Ok, I cant topple it and it can heal itself. Not great. But that doesn't mean its invulnerable. There must be some specific way to destroy it… What if I go for the legs?"

Looking over at the legs, even as the totem is slanted as its being pulled to the ground, the feet lay flat against the ground. The short stumpy clay feet don't appear to be feeling any strain from the body's movement, and she thinks that should she let go, the totem would just tilt itself upright again.

It is at this point she remembers the ball joints on the arms, and that there doesn't appear to be any for the legs.

"It's almost like its showcasing them, putting them in the spotlight. They must be the weak points that I need to hit."

She decides to go for it and see if her theory is correct. After a quick tug on the arm as much as she can, she pushes herself forward and slithers quickly to the joint of the arm she had been holding. As she moves the totem begins to bring itself back to its original orientation, the arms moving to orientate straight up, likely to stop her for latching onto one again.

This gives Octavia enough time to reach the joint, where she brings down the hammer of the poleaxe right onto the ball joint.

*smash*

The hit completely obliterates the joint, causing the arm to detach from the body, flopping to the floor.

With Octavia being close to its body, before she can go for another joint, it uses the remaining arms to quickly smash down at her location. While trying to dash out of the way, one of the arms ends up clipping her, knocking her down to the ground.

With the success of its attack, it brings its arms back up again for another swing.

Octavia realising the dangerous situation she is in pushes she self-up, quickly forgetting about the pain in her side and moves out of the way.

…

Well, almost moves out of the way.

Two of the fists end up hitting straight onto her tail, almost pummelling it to the ground.

"Ahhhh!" The fists start to rise again, and Octavia does all she can to get away. Thankfully third time isn't a charm for the totem as the fists only hit dirt, in place of the wounded lamia.

On the edge of the arena, Octavia licks her wounds, as the totem slowly turns and makes its way towards her again.

"It hurts so much. It's much stronger than it was before. Did the loss of its arm bump it up in difficulty? Damn." Looking down, her tail is a lot flatter than it used to be. "I really hope that's not permanent." The side of her body is also wracked in pain from when it clipped her, knocking her down.

While very painful, she is still able to use her tail and move with it. Knowing that the joints were the key, she readies herself, poleaxe in hand, and moves towards the totem again.

Trying to do what she did previously, it looks like the totem had learnt from its mistake. As one of the bottom arms swings towards her, as her tail nears it, it quickly pulls the arm up, missing her.

The single arm attempts to either smash down on her, or swings around, which always keeps her guessing.

Through a lot of dodging and learning how to fare against its harder and more fierce attacks, she goes on the offense. Making her move, she hopes to get all of the arms out of the way in one go, to then reach the joints.

As the bottom arm spins towards her and the top comes crashing down, she swings the poleaxe towards the top one, hitting it to the side on its way down. This causing it to spin out of the way in place of crash down on her or fly up. For the bottom arm, she moves her tail towards it, and like all previous attempts it lifts up.

With one going up and the other across, they end up intercepting each other, knocking away from each other.

With the mess the arms were experiencing, Octavia heads forward and reaches its body.

She brings the poleaxe down onto one of the bottom joints, removing it from the body. It is at this point that the other arm comes to swing round an hit her. Seeing this coming, she swings her tail at the incoming arm.

What she doesn't notice is the remining top arm that is swinging around the other way.

As she swings her tail at the bottom arm, hoping it will just move out of the way like before, it takes on the challenge in place of fleeing, smashing into her tail. With two arms gone, it turns out the totem is a lot stronger now, causing her to be pushed along the dirt.

After the clash, the arm is now locked against her tail, pushing with all its might. The top arm makes it way around, which Octavia finally notices. With not many options left, as removal of her tail would end up in her being hit, she brings her poleaxe up to defend. The fist hits the wooden pole of the poleaxe, sending a shock down her arms, but to her surprise, the pole resists the force quite well, with no signs of strain in the wood.

Locked between both arms, trying to crush her, she uses all of her strength to hold them back lest she end up flat like her tail.

"Arrr, you are so strong now."

Straining against the crushing pressure, a crazy idea comes to mind. She wraps her tail around the arm she is holding back and grips tightly.

"Ok, here we go. Do or die time."

She drops her arms and torso, so she is flat on her back. The top arms continue its swing and narrowly missing her. With the force gone on one side and her grip on the floor reduced, she is lifted off the floor by the arm she has latched onto.

"Yes!"

Turning to the arm, she moves to the next phase of her plan, where like with the tree, she climbs down the clay.

The totem, seeing this, feeling this or whatever it does, bends at its joint, trying to crush her against its body.

As she nears it, she curls around the arm, so only her tail ends up being smash.

"Arrgh! Damn it!" Indescribable pain floods through her tail. Knowing that all she can do is keep going and beat this thing she crawls down the arm to the joint. With her tail being trapped against the body, as she moves it scraps along the hardened clay.

The other arm flails around trying to reach her, but with the geometry of this construct, it is unable to do so.

The arm she grips to pulls away and smashes back into the body, hoping to get her off, but fails to do so. While painful for Octavia, she blocks it out to get the job done.

…

But that can only work for so long.

As she nears the torso, everything changes. The torso starts to form bumps on its body, which sharpen into points, curving at the end.

A massive sense of foreboding hits Octavia as she realises what it's doing.

"Oh sh-." is all that comes out of her mouth. She thought smashing against the body was painful, but what happens next does not compare. The arm she is holding, starts to spin on its joint in the direction opposite to the curvature of the spikes.

The many spikes on its body dig and scrape against her tail as it spins. Still crawling down the arm, she manages to keep her human half away from the spikes. After a few rotations, the spikes manage to do the job they were there for. While the digging and scraping does hurt, what was really painful was when it managed to get under her scales and pry them from her tail.

Screams echo through the arena as hundreds of her scales are pried and pulled off her tail. Blood flows down her tail and pools onto the floor. The damage and pain becomes too much for Octavia, causing her to lose her grip and drop to the floor.

*Thud*

Thankfully still conscious, she sees the arms gearing up for another to attack to smash into her. But, with the progress she had made down the arm, even dropping from it, she ended up landing just in front of the body.

With the end in sight, she screams from the pain as she moves and brings her poleaxe down as hard as she can on one of the joints, destroying it. Learning from her mistakes, she turns quickly and smashes down onto the other joint. It is only after she did it that she realised how close she was to failing. As the last arm detaches it flies towards her, hitting the floor and rolling by her, showing just how close it was to smashing into her.

"…"

At this point, the totem stops moving all together. The silence in the room is disrupted only by the heavy breathing from Octavia interspersed by the groans of pain every now and then. Surrounding her, blood fills the area with many scales floating through it.

All of a sudden, the light in the carvings of the totem vanish, and it slowly starts to melt, the clay pooling on the ground of the arena.

She had won. While not her first fight in this new life, it was the worst. As she lay there in her own blood, she could only hope that she never had to experience anything like that ever again.